Half

It is because I travel half alone
I understand emptiness; a place for everything,
an openness where halves fill.
Even togetherness must be filled with separation.
There must be a place for everyone to die;
life is our emptiness and cry for grace.

It is in endings I have come to know
the beauty in letting go; making room for more.
What are we but shapes some kind of god has
poured into half way and then withdraws
like a deer filled up with drinking
that suddenly sees its reflection in the stream.
That is the surprise of silence when shimmering,
we stand face to face with ourselves.

It is because we stop breathing between breaths
that everything comes to awareness,
so that is enforces our repetition,
when we speak it is a re-enforcement of ourselves,
we perpetuate and sustain our own rarity
by being alone; we make it real.
Together we become a conference.
We speak among the dumbness of nature
and hear our echo.

If you come to me seeking some kind of oneness,
it is a halfness that will fill you up
until you love, give birth, die;
the other half will be reflection, silence,
the echo of the emptiness that must contain us all.
I have come here half way to my death alone,
found it full, total, with living things, you;
we speak and then we sleep.